


destined for greatness

by orphan_account



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Blind Character, I made myself sad, M/M, i think this might be the saddest one yet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-05
Updated: 2016-01-05
Packaged: 2018-05-11 21:24:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5642491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hux has lost and Ben has won. It was not always meant to be this way, once they had been destined for greatness.<br/>Their lives had been written into the stars themselves.<br/>Now they are nothing and it doesn't even matter.  </p>
<p>OR </p>
<p>Hux has fallen, and Ben Solo isn't going to help him up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	destined for greatness

**Author's Note:**

> im was trashy and now im trashy and sad.

Ben Solo finds the general lying in the middle of a chemical fire.  

The fire is blue and green, the light harsh against the dark night and the stench infernal. Smoke fills the air, fills Ben. The night is brimming with cries and screams and sobs, but all Ben can hear is crackling of the flames and the pained breathing of the man who lies within them.  

Ben steps through the fire, the flames licking at his arms and tearing at his skin. He would not do this for anyone else, or at least he wouldn’t have; before.

Hux is shaking, his body wrecked by violent shocks and spasms. The fire has not yet reached his body, but the chemicals have already done their damage.

As Ben holds the other man in his arms he cannot help but feel tears burning behind his eyes and a sob building up inside his throat. And when Hux opens his eyes Ben can’t hold back the sadness and the anger and the _relief_ back any longer. 

***

_(You gasped and sighed when your body pressed against his,_ this, _you thought to yourself,_ is what happiness is. _You kissed and you scratched, you bit and you caressed. Together you were nothing but contradictions._

_Together you were everything and you were the stars and the nebulas and everything in-between._

_When your eyes met his everything shifted into place, but world spun faster than ever and eventually you knew you wouldn’t be able to keep up, but knowing that didn’t stop it, it just made it all the more beautiful._

_Alone you were destined for greatness, but together you were destined for something more.)_

***

Ben watches as Hux is carried away by the doctors, his pained cries stabbing at Ben’s stomach and pulling his hair. Ben wants to scream and rage, wants to consume everything in his path, but instead he breathes (in and out and in and out), closes his fists, and goes to find his mother.

He finds General Leia Organa by herself.

She is standing on the edge of the battlefield, and although her face is as steadfast as ever, Ben can feel her emotions through the force. Inside she is empty, but more than that she is relieved; _everything_ is over. All that pain and blood, everything she had ever lived for is gone.

Everything except for her son.

Ben stands by her side, and although she has not forgiven him (she never will, truly) she clutches his hand in her own and reaches out to him through the force.  He lets her in, swallows her up with his sadness and his regret. 

‘You loved him,’ her voice is low and gravely, worn down by age and hardship.

Ben doesn’t answer, doesn’t know what to say. Instead he looks up in wonder and he _hopes_. 

***

_(You often wondered what would have happened if you had never met him; it would have been so much simpler, less harsh. It would have been clean and sharp, but that wasn’t what you wanted, not really. You wanted, needed, those jagged edges and that sublime pleasure._

_He was more than human, and when your lips met so were you._

_You often wondered what would have happened if you had met in another world, a better one with no war and no pain. But you were made of war and he was made of pain, so it never would have worked. Maybe in a universe where there was no war and there was no pain you could have been happy, but you wouldn’t have been as beautiful and that was what really mattered._

_He was a black hole and he pulled you right in and ate you up, somehow you didn’t mind because in a black hole time slows down and you needed as much time as you could get.)_

***

Hux has bandages over his eyes.

When Ben sees this his heart begins to fracture; a thin spider web of cracks spreading from his chest to his head, to his hands, to his toes. Hux had always been beautiful, a striking figure designed to catch the eyes of others and keep them, but his eyes were more than that.

Ben (Ren) had looked into Hux’s eyes and he had seen something so visceral it _hurt_. But now those eyes are ruined, all the colour burnt away, and no longer is Hux real.

As Ben sits by the generals bed he runs his fingers through Hux’s hair and lets his hands get tangled. Through the force Ben can feel that Hux is awake, but he is too scared to speak because then none of this would have ever happened.  

‘Kylo Ren,’ Hux’s voice is breathy and weak, a mere shadow of what it had been before. Hux had his voice and his cunning charm to seduce armies and bring planets to their knees, but now it was burnt away by the same chemicals that had taken his eyes.

‘That’s not my name,’ Ben tries to be gentle, but it won’t matter. Ben feels Hux tense in the bed, feels his anger simmer through the force, and they stay that way for minutes or for hours.

‘Leave.’ It’s a command, Ben wouldn’t expect anything else from the monster general of the First Order, the man who revelled in blowing planets apart and killing stars.

Hux speaks once more, his voice steady as Ben turns towards the door.  

‘Will I ever see again?’

Ben doesn’t say anything, which answers everything.  

***

_(The first time you kissed you thought the world around you was going to shatter. You were not a good kisser and neither was he, but together you moved in tandem and it was sublime._

_Over your years you didn’t kiss many times, not even when you fucked, but when you did it was precious even if it hurt._

_The last time you kissed your heart broke and you didn’t even understand why. You were lying in his bed, and both of you were fully clothed but bare and raw too. Neither of you spoke, not even a whisper, and maybe it was because you were both too scared to make a sound._

_But when your eyes met his it didn’t matter. You were lost and he was found, together you were tenuous and you were strong._

_He lent forwards, his hands caressing your face and you closed your eyes because if you saw anything you would forget it forever, and his lips met yours._

_For the first time everything was soft, a gentle reminder of words that were never spoken and never forgotten. You kissed and finally (finally) you felt_ real.

_You fell asleep being held in his arms, his hand pressed against your cheek._

_You woke alone.)_

*** 

‘It’s your fault,’ Ben doesn’t react to the vicious tone in Hux’s voice, he hadn’t expected anything else. Hux was cold he was mean, and he was manipulative. Instead of replying, of giving in a replaying that vicious cycle that had controlled them both for so long, Ben looks at Hux and tries to forget the past.

Hux’s face is scared and it is broken. There are burns along his neck, those are the ones that have ruined his voice. There are burns covering his left hand, his back, his stomach. The chemical burns create a mask of raw pink skin running in a line across his eyes; his mouth and nose and cheeks have been left perfect and smooth but the fire has destroyed his eyes.  

Ben can’t help but stare.

Hux’s eyelashes and brows have grown back white; stark against the scar. His eyes have been burnt away. Once they were green and now there are milky and white. Before they had pierced Ben and had reigned him in, but now they stare absently into the distance.   

Once, Hux had been technicolour but now he was just shades of white (his eyes, his skin, his clothes) and red (his hair, his mouth, his scars, his blood.)

‘I said, _it’s your fault!’_ Hux’s voice is quite but it anger; anger transformed into a weapon that cuts deeper and faster than any other.  

‘No,’ Ben feels dizzy with sadness, but he can’t lie to Hux and he can’t lie to himself. Ben is a monster and he is irredeemable, but Hux is too. Hux tried to destroy the universe and instead he destroyed himself. Hux deserves it.

Ben leaves the cell, and Hux doesn’t stop him but Ben can feel his screams through the force.  

***

_(You don’t remember the first few months after he left. They were a blur of planning and commanding. You hadn’t realised it before; but he had been your last tie to reality and without him you were flying away to the stars._

_Those months were a blur, and the whole time all you could think about was_ him.

_You thought about what you had been and what you could have been._

_Together you could have been so beautiful, together you could have ruled the galaxy._

_But now you were alone, and you understood why. You were too dark and he was too light. You were too cruel and he was too broken. You had lost yourself in him and he found himself in you._

_He had destroyed everything you were and everything you could have been, and you were going to destroy him too.)_

***

Ben doesn’t know what to think when Hux pulls him down into the small medical cot that dominated his cell. Hux is weak and fragile, his skin translucent and lips chapped.  The bed beneath them is lumpy and hard, the light above blinding. But as they lay with their arms around each other, their heart beating in sync, Ben is reminded of that last night, that last kiss.

It had been beautiful, and now he ached for that beauty again.

‘Kiss me,’ Hux’s voice is laced with desire, and when his breath tickles across Ben’s check he feels his own desire spread upwards. But he won’t give in, because he had left Hux behind and he couldn’t go back now.

‘No,’ Ben’s answer mirrors the sadness in his head.

‘Why?’ Beneath the surface Ben can sense a hurricane within Hux and maybe this time they should let it go.

He doesn’t answer, he just stokes Hux’s hair and puts a finger over his lips.

‘Do you not want to kiss a monster? Have you forgotten who you are, Kylo Ren?’ Hux says, vicious and cruel. But Ben hasn’t forgotten.

‘That’s not my name,’ his voice is a growl, and as he pulls at Hux’s hair the other man gasps in pain.

‘Have you forgotten what _we_ were?’

Ben hasn’t forgotten this either, and he finally gives in and kisses Hux. This kiss is unlike any other they shared, it is not violent and it is not soft. This kiss is desperate, it is a fire about to burn out; aching for something, anything, to keep it alight.   

***

_(You were not surprised when you lost that final battle. You didn’t care, and that didn’t surprise you either._

_Maybe you had needed him just as much as he needed you. The idea didn’t scare you like it did before._

_What did surprise you was the feeling of his arms around your body as he carried you out of the fire.)_

***

Hux is offered two choices: die at the hands of the New Republic or live his life a prisoner of the Resistance.

As Ben tells Hux this, he can’t feel anything. The only thing left in Ben is a blank whiteness, everything else has been burned away.

Neither Ben nor Hux speak, both too scared to break the fragile peace. Instead Ben holds Hux in his arms and waits.  

When he reaches through the force, all he can feel is that Hux is scared and Hux is alive.

'I don’t want to die’ finally Hux breaks, his sobs tearing through them both, his body shaking. He is young and he still has so much to give. And as he sobs Ben holds him, and Ben can’t feel anything and he in this moment the light hurts far more than the dark ever could.

Ben holds Hux, and for the first time in a lifetime it is just them again, they are the entire universe and they are made of stars and black holes and supernovas.

After eons, the sobs subside and the only noise is hagged breath coming from the general. And in this moment Ben Solo wants to stay forever, but moments never last and forever is impossible.

Eventually Hux speaks again his voice as clear as the first time they met but the words are barely a whisper.

The world splinters.               

***

_(You never said it, and maybe it was because you never knew, but you were in love and maybe you still are._

_It doesn’t matter anyway.)_

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!  
> Comments and feedback are always appreciated :)  
> My Star Wars blog: poeskywallker.tumblr.com  
> <3


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